Governor lauds plane crash rescuers

February 22, 2013

Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised the forest rangers, state police and local emergency personnel who worked together to rescue three men in a plane crash in the McKenzie Mountain Wilderness late Thursday and early this morning.

"No matter the weather conditions or the time of day, our state's first responders step up to the call of duty and do what is necessary to find and rescue people that are lost or injured," Cuomo said in a press release. "These first responders went above and beyond to save lives and on behalf of all New Yorkers I thank them for their bravery and service."

"Responding to a small plane crash near Lake Placid, a team of DEC Forest Rangers walked miles in the bitter cold and dark through rough terrain to find and safely rescue three individuals who were in the aircraft," Cuomo said.

The plane was a Vans RV-10 amateur-built experimental aircraft, and it crashed at 6 p.m. Thursday, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson told the Associated Press. The spokesperson said the flight departed from Somerset Airport in Bedminster, N.J.

The three men in the crash were 54-year-old Michael Oster, 58-year-old Jeff O'Connor and 51-year-old Frank Dombroski, all from Westfield, N.J. The plane was on its way to the Lake Placid Airport when it crashed.

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After the crash, one of the men called Essex County 911 from a cell phone, initiating the search efforts. Forest rangers originally searched the Nye Mountain area, looking for the plane there because of the coordinates one of the men gave them indicated the crash was in that area.

"At 10:50 p.m. forest rangers concluded that Nye Mountain location was not the correct location," a statement from the DEC said. "At about this same time the first two forest rangers had hiked three miles to the crash site and confirmed there was no airplane present. It was determined through discussions with others that the original coordinates were provided in untypical format. Plotting the coordinates in the other format it was determined that the crash site was actually just west of Lake Placid near Big Burn Mountain."

Forest rangers initiated a new search from that area, starting at the trailhead for the Jackrabbit Trail off of Whiteface Inn Road. They found the men at 1:55 a.m. today and had them out of the woods by about 3:30 a.m. The men were were checked out by the Lake Placid Volunteer Ambulance Service but apparently didn't have any serious injuries and declined further treatment.